Re: Just Watched
« Reply #260 on: April 26, 2014, 09:46:56 PM »
I didn't like Superman before MoS and I still don't find him a terribly interesting hero. Never read any comic books. I don't see how they're relevant to the movies. I guess it took them a tent pole movie to realise that they can't do an enjoyable, hyper realistic, broody superman. Maybe it was just Goyer's shitty writing and Afleck's addition will improve things.

Either way, I'm looking forward to the sequel, hopefully it finally launches things for DC. It's funny to point out the failure of WB to capitalize as Disney has, but after a while it's just sad.

Ghost of V

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #261 on: April 26, 2014, 09:52:11 PM »
I didn't like Superman before MoS and I still don't find him a terribly interesting hero. Never read any comic books. I don't see how they're relevant to the movies. I guess it took them a tent pole movie to realise that they can't do an enjoyable, hyper realistic, broody superman. Maybe it was just Goyer's shitty writing and Afleck's addition will improve things.

Either way, I'm looking forward to the sequel, hopefully it finally launches things for DC. It's funny to point out the failure of WB to capitalize as Disney has, but after a while it's just sad.

I recommend watching Smallville. I thought Superman was the worst superhero ever before watching it.

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #262 on: April 26, 2014, 09:59:32 PM »
Aquaman is the worst superhero ever. I just don't find Superman terribly interesting. I'm aware of some good Superman stories, but I prefer heroes who have flaws in their powers. Plus I've loved iron man since I was a kid so I'm inherently biased.

I have watched some Smallville but it was years ago. I only remember the hot brunette love interest..

Ghost of V

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #263 on: April 26, 2014, 10:01:49 PM »
I have watched some Smallville but it was years ago. I only remember the hot brunette love interest..

Lana Lang? She's the fucking worst.

And yeah, Aquaman is the worst superhero ever. I'm glad we agree on something. Interestingly enough, Aquaman is in several Smallville episodes and is portrayed with a dumbass surfer-esque persona, like he should be because he fucking sucks.

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: Just Watched
« Reply #264 on: April 26, 2014, 11:37:54 PM »
Le Plaisir (Max Ophüls)

Ophüls is one of those directors who frames every shot like a painting, the sheer beauty of the camera work in this particular film even makes up for parts in which the middle story (of three, after Guy de Maupassant) starts to drag. I don't think it's a dramatic masterpiece, but it is good, and simply as a piece of cinema it is masterful.

Rama Set

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #265 on: April 27, 2014, 05:35:10 AM »
I just didn't like how grim and serious the whole thing was. It's a Superman movie, yet I had next to no fun watching it. I even winced when people in metroplis were levitated and smashed on the ground. What the hell is that doing in Superman?

That you require certain material or tone in a superman movie is your own bias that you should not project on to Man of Steel

Quote
They wreck a lot of Metropolis yes, but if you are doing a realistic version of Superman what else would happen?  Superman is on his heels for a lot of the fight and there is a bunch of immovable object/unstoppable force type physics happening.

This is a fairly common argument. It's not hard to imagine that they simply fought elsewhere, or Superman moved the fight elsewhere. In any case, the final 40 minute destruction sequence was just 1 of many problems.
It's not hard to imagine and it is much less interesting for them to fight in a say , a cornfield. Kal-El was fighting a trained soldier. He could not choose the location.

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #266 on: April 27, 2014, 07:22:33 AM »
That you require certain material or tone in a superman movie is your own bias that you should not project on to Man of Steel

That's true, but I felt it ruined the movie for me. When you leave a superhero movie feeling like you just watched 9/11, then there's something wrong. The Avengers did citywide destruction without making me feel like killing myself.

It's not hard to imagine and it is much less interesting for them to fight in a say , a cornfield. Kal-El was fighting a trained soldier. He could not choose the location.

That's true. I guess they could have just scaled down the buildings falling on people and Superman throwing Zod through buildings for no reason. Another thing that bugs me about the movie was the Superman had like 30 years of getting used to his powers, Zod had like 1 week. So him being a general doesn't mean squat, really.

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Offline rooster

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Re: Just Watched
« Reply #267 on: April 27, 2014, 03:22:27 PM »
Being a general does mean something. Zod was born and raised to be the best soldier. He had the intense discipline, focus, and combat knowledge to pick up on his powers faster than Clark.

I don't think there's something wrong with having a realistic superhero movie with human deaths. I'm glad they exist so people like me can enjoy them while people like you can enjoy the light hearted Avengers stuff.

Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: Just Watched
« Reply #268 on: April 27, 2014, 04:27:51 PM »
7th Heaven (Frank Borzage)

Classic silent romance with Janet Gaynor as the abused sister of an alcoholic criminal of some sort. She is rescued from one of her sister's attacks by a sewer cleaner and circumstances force her to pose as his wife, the rest pretty much goes from there. It's often crazily melodramatic, plenty of it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but there's a magic captured in the combination of visuals, music and text, such that I found myself willingly going along with it no matter what happened.

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #269 on: April 27, 2014, 04:39:38 PM »
pool.

There are so many fouls committed in that clip I'm surprised he doesn't get thrown out.

Ghost of V

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #270 on: April 27, 2014, 04:44:27 PM »
Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

I started watching Attack on Titan a few days ago, is it worth finishing?

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Re: Just Watched
« Reply #271 on: April 27, 2014, 06:47:36 PM »
Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

I started watching Attack on Titan a few days ago, is it worth finishing?
I think it's great. The story is interesting and the action looks great. The plot moves fast in the beginning so they move up to cadets really quickly.

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #272 on: April 27, 2014, 09:07:53 PM »
Being a general does mean something. Zod was born and raised to be the best soldier. He had the intense discipline, focus, and combat knowledge to pick up on his powers faster than Clark.

I don't think there's something wrong with having a realistic superhero movie with human deaths. I'm glad they exist so people like me can enjoy them while people like you can enjoy the light hearted Avengers stuff.

Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

I don't shy away from heavy and dark movies. They were trying to emulate Batman in a Superman movie and I think they failed miserably. Not because Superman is supposed to be happy or anything, it just wasn't fun. Even TDK was fun.

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #273 on: April 27, 2014, 09:19:38 PM »
I thought the superman film before the man of steel with Brandon Routh had a good twist to it as well. I don't know why they didn't carry it on a bit more.

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Re: Just Watched
« Reply #274 on: April 27, 2014, 09:38:12 PM »
Being a general does mean something. Zod was born and raised to be the best soldier. He had the intense discipline, focus, and combat knowledge to pick up on his powers faster than Clark.

I don't think there's something wrong with having a realistic superhero movie with human deaths. I'm glad they exist so people like me can enjoy them while people like you can enjoy the light hearted Avengers stuff.

Speaking of grim, I just finished all the episodes of Attack on Titan and I'm considering reading more into the mangas.

I don't shy away from heavy and dark movies. They were trying to emulate Batman in a Superman movie and I think they failed miserably. Not because Superman is supposed to be happy or anything, it just wasn't fun. Even TDK was fun.
I guess I just don't understand where you're coming from then.

Fun isn't really a word I would ever use to describe a heavy/dark movie. I like TDK and Man of Steel, but neither of them were my definition of fun.

Ghost of V

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #275 on: April 27, 2014, 10:55:39 PM »
The lighthearted fun nature of previous Superman movies is one of the things that turned me off from Superman to begin with.
« Last Edit: April 27, 2014, 10:59:57 PM by Vauxhall »

Ghost of V

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #276 on: April 27, 2014, 10:56:00 PM »
Oh, and his costume.

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Offline Crudblud

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Re: Just Watched
« Reply #277 on: April 29, 2014, 06:00:08 PM »
Sideways (Alexander Payne)

I was initially not too impressed with Sideways, beginning as it does in a very shallow “two dudes hit the road to par-tay!” mode, but this is eventually eased off as the film shifts into darker, sometimes even metaphysical territory. I think in context the opening is given something of a get out of jail free (maybe more like a get out of jail for £10) card by the much richer second half, in which the apparent shallow qualities of the former are given some depth and meaning.

The film does suffer from a tonal imbalance, where it can't quite decide if it wants to be a light hearted buddy movie or an absurdist black comedy, and there are helpings of both coming at the audience in awkward rhythms which I don't think the writer/director is quite able to pull off. I think this is also in part down to the acting, which is highly uneven, like the actors have emotional on/off switches they keep accidentally knocking against the furniture during conversations.
 
There are, conversely, scenes that are both cleverly written and movingly portrayed. One very intimate interaction between Paul Giamatti and Virginia Madsen, ostensibly about why they like their favourite wines, has a subtlety and complexity that the film manages to reach only in its very best moments, and this can leave some other parts of the film feeling a little dull by comparison.

The problems with this film cannot be solely attributed to the uneven writing and acting, much of the time I found the music to be far and away the worst offender, often becoming intrusive in scenes that would have been better silent. A lot of the more poignant or even funny moments, even in the scene I mentioned above, are abruptly foreshortened by incoming music “bits”, and I use that word because there doesn't seem to be a score so much as a pool of stock bits they dip into from time to time.

Watching Sideways, there is this nagging feeling I can't quite shake, and the feeling is that I'm watching a “serious” film which borrows some of the aesthetic values of '90s teen comedy. For me it does have enough good stuff in it to outweigh the bad overall, and it did make me laugh out loud many times, but it is not the film it seems to want to be, and I think many of its themes, particularly depression, anxiety, loneliness, and writing, have all been explored better by Charlie Kaufman in his films Adaptation and Synecdoche, New York

Ultimately, Sideways is pretty good, but it should be great.

Saddam Hussein

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #278 on: May 01, 2014, 05:53:47 PM »
Stop trying to raise the intellectual level of the discussion, Crudblud.  This thread is now for bitching about superhero movies.

Speaking of which, I finally saw Iron Man 3.  It wasn't as bad as I had heard.  There was some good action, mainly at the end, the humor worked for the most part, and I especially liked the way they put the focus on Tony Stark himself being the hero, not the basically-indestructible suit of armor that happens to have him inside it.  Even the subplot with the kid I thought was pretty well-handled, and that could have backfired in a major way.

The main problem I had with it, however, was the basic premise, or the conflict.  It's just generic corporate douchebaggery.  That's it.  That's really all there is to it.  A generic corporate douchebag is greedy and wants more money, therefore conflict of the movie.  Oh, and I guess there's an element of personal revenge in it, because Tony...snubbed him at an event several years ago.  That makes it even dumber.  They could have made a point about terrorism, or maybe even the utilitarian ideal that they hinted at the start of the movie with the Extremis virus, but no, let's just go with generic corporate douchebaggery.  Bleh.

Re: Just Watched
« Reply #279 on: May 01, 2014, 05:57:01 PM »
Dawg, I been watchin' HOUSE lately. That nigga be off tha hook, na'meen?

Oh its tachychardia. Nevermind, he's hemorrhaging. Must be cancer. Nvm. CANCER and LUPUS that he got from PIPE DUST IN ASIA.